


Desire Absolute

by Aeriel



Category: Les liaisons dangereuses | Dangerous Liaisons - Choderlos de Laclos
Genre: F/M, Gen, Period-Typical Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeriel/pseuds/Aeriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows Madame de Tourvel will betray him soon enough. She's a woman.</p><p>for prompt 'I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desire Absolute

He can't remember the first woman he ever conquered. It actually pains Valmont, that he's had enough women that the ones from the early days, when mostly he played with virgins and servant girls, have blurred into each other. He was impulsive, and not terribly subtle, but already his cruelty was honed to a fine point.

His mother taught him that.

If the Comtesse de Valmont had had many men, it would not have been so bad. He would have understood, later in life at least, if not in childhood, that she had an insatiable appetite. But she restricted her adultery to one man- just one, until the day she died. And for loving that man more than his father, and ultimately, more than him, the Vicomte could never forgive her.

All women, and all men, for that matter, may be lead astray. Desire was, in Valmont's opinion, the universal constant. If he ever lost faith that he could have Madame de Tourvel, it was only out of the fear that she did not desire him specifically, rather than that she did not possess the desire to betray her husband. After all, he knew her type.

The Marquise de Merteuil, his co-conspirator and confidant in all matters carnal and military, had been married at much the same age as the lovely Tourvel. Her marriage was not a subject that she much liked to talk about, but he had gathered that the Marquis de Merteuil was not the most generous of lovers. From what Valmont knew of the Presidente de Tourvel, he had come from much the same mold.

It would not take much to outdo him in the field of love. Indeed, when they first were together, Tourvel's obvious ecstasy was such that it was apparent that actual pleasure was a new and welcome sensation for her. When he mentioned this in a letter to the Marquise, he could hear her laughing in the words she had penned.

_So, our blushing maiden has experienced her first little death, has she? No wonder she gave you such trouble, dear Vicomte!_

As he watched her sleep, Valmont looked for traces of change in her. Surely now, she would seek out other men? Now that she knew what they had to offer, she would follow in the footsteps of Cecile de Volanges, and become a pleasure machine, in the Marquise's words? _  
_

Surely? No, certainly. She was a woman- betrayal was in her nature.

Love. He wasn't sure he understood what love was, but if he had ever loved a woman, it was the Marquise de Merteuil. She understood him almost instinctively, and vice versa. He thought he might have married her, had she not brought their affair to an end. "Let us end it, before it ends us" she had said, and so they went their seperate ways physically, if not mentally. And he drowed his sorrows in other flesh, while she took up with one of his dearest friends, the Chevalier Belleroche, because she knew it would make him more jealous than a stranger. 

And so he had begun by pursuing a woman that reflected the Marquise's public image, because he knew that would make her jealous in turn. 

But it had gone beyond the original intent. Did he want the Marquise still? Yes, of course- when he closed his eyes he could still smell the perfume on her bosom, feel the exactness of her touch. But he could also go on as he was, for a time. 

At least, until Madame de Tourvel's inevitable betrayal. 


End file.
